In my home country of Trinidad and Tobago, I can be arrested and imprisoned for up to 25 years for having consensual sex with my male partner.

Any sexual intimacy between couples of the same sex is a crime (including sex between women). My government calls these acts “serious indecency”. They can imprison us for up to 25 years for penetrative sex and for 5 years for any other act of sexual intimacy. There are around 100,000 LGBT people on my islands, many living a hidden and fearful life. Gay and bi men, lesbian and bi women, trans people, all live with the threat of this criminal law hanging over them. We inherited these laws from Britain (did you know that 74 million LGBT people in the Commonwealth are criminalised?), but my own Government extended the law from only gay men to lesbians after we gained our independence. This is Trinidad and Tobago in the year 2017. An oil-rich, tropical, Caribbean paradise…?

My name is Jason Jones. I am a human rights defender challenging my Government in the High Court to change this situation. I am asking the Court to declare that these laws are unconstitutional! That they violate my human rights, and encourage homophobia and hatred from my fellow citizens against the LGBT community, and therefore they MUST be removed!

T&T LGBT activist receives multiple death threats.

My Government is defending this case, saying that these laws must stay in place! Since filing my legal challenge in February of this year, I have received over 5 dozen death threats, and hundreds of messages of hate on my social media pages. I live in fear for my safety and have become completely isolated from friends and family because I don’t want anything to happen to them back home.

Over the last two years, I have planned my case with a brilliant legal team made up of lawyers from both Trinidad and Britain. They have worked for free, giving me hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of free work! I am so very grateful to them all! My day in Court is nearly here. Now, I need YOUR help.

I still need to raise at least £15,000 for my Court case: for Court fees, transport and security for my lawyers, and the cost of printing documents for Court. Litigation is not cheap, even when you have the best lawyers working for you for free!

Your donation will ensure that 100,000 LGBT people have their day in Court, so that we can challenge these barbaric laws that criminalise us for being lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans.

Australia just voted ‘yes’ to same-sex love. We are a long way from that, but you can help us make the first steps.

Thank you so much for your support.

Jason

The intersection of race and sexuality, and the fight for LGBT rights in the Caribbean – an interview with Jason Jones